As I’m in-between full-time jobs and/or possibly starting school in the fall (shhhhh), I have been more careful about where I spend my money than usual. (And I’m pretty frugal as it is.)
But you know what? Sometimes, experiences that cost money give you a lot more in return.
Also, I like to think that I’m investing in things to look forward to this year. Remember how I said that I said yes to more opportunities in 2013 and then didn’t do that in 2014? Well, time to say yes again.
Because I’ll admit, when I hit those mood lows, I don’t look forward to the next day, week, month, year, whatever. I get very stuck in the stress of living in the present and stressing over the past that I don’t even want to begin stressing about the future. It was really important during really difficult weeks of school for me to give myself something to look forward to at the end of the week so that I didn’t just give up in the middle of the week, no matter how much I wanted to. Even if it was something like: “Okay, Starr, you have three exams this week BUT if you survive them, you can buy an éclair for dessert on Friday. For lunch AND dinner if you want!” (Fact: I love éclairs.)
I hit a low like this last week. It wasn’t fun; I felt like I was just existing and it was getting really exhausting. Don’t get me wrong; there were no thoughts of self-harm involved here. You know that feeling at the end of a really long day when you barely want to change or wash up, you just want to collapse onto your bed and close your eyes and put the day behind you?
Take that and concentrate it and you’ll get an idea of what I was feeling. Very emotionally exhausted by life, specifically by worrying about life, and not seeing an end to that worrying anytime soon, which was exhausting to think about it and of itself. I just felt so… done. Spent.
So, this weekend, I’ve been giving myself things to look forward to, investing in myself for those days and weeks and months when I don’t want to do things and need to be forced to leave my room.
Here are a few things I have planned over the next few months that I’m pretty excited for!
Tickets haven’t gone on sale yet but I’m excited to see Stromae in person!
Also I haven’t been to a concert in a long time, so this will be fun
Linking to his US tour if you’re interested in seeing him perform in your city or mine!
I have other things going on, but these are the things I’m locking down just this week.
(And also I’m just super excited for Karen and Christine to visit, but that’s been in the works for some time now!)
These are gifts to myself, to reward myself for just surviving. I wish I didn’t need it, but some days I do. And it’s important to treat yo self, right? I’m still learning to do this.
How are you planning to treat your self in the coming weeks?
Last week, I went back to the Warner Theatre to see Anything Goes!, courtesy of Yelp NoVa. (Thanks Gretchen!)
My program from the evening
Oh man, it was so wonderful. As fun as the 50 Shades musical parody was, I was so happy to return to traditional musical theater, complete with long dance numbers.
TL;DR: I really loved this show, so much. It’s a bit old fashioned (Cole Porter wrote the songs, after all), but it was so much fun, I had a smile on my face the whole time.
I’ll keep this review short but let’s go through a few bullets:
Cole Porter’s songs are so fun
The cast members of this touring production were great
Emma Stratton was phenomenal as Reno Sweeney. I got this amazing Marilyn Monroe vibe from her performance, and she carried the entire show on her shoulders with her strong voice, impeccable comedic timing, and fabulous dance numbers. Sh’s the star of the show and didn’t let us down.
Yes, there are 2 “chinamen” characters in the show, but it is an old show and they could have easily just had an all-white cast. That being said, as racist as the portrayals of Chinese people was in this show, they still managed to make it really fun and funny.
The character dynamics in this show are so great and hilarious, from the foolishly proper Lord Oakleigh to the status-upholding Mrs. Harcourt to the too-old-to-care Eli Whitney.
The show is on the longer side but every minute is worth it, I promise you this.
Especially if you love tapdancing
Extraordinary work by stage crew, lighting folks, sound folks
IF YOU’RE NOT SINGING THE SONGS AS YOU LEAVE THE THEATER, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG
Oh man, I just… see a musical at the theater if you can. Catch Anything Goes! if you can.
You won’t regret it.
Here, Sutton Foster performs. I preferred Emma Stratton’s effortless, subtle, sultry performance a bit but, of course, Sutton is amazing.
Our shortest month of the year seemed to pass even faster than usual, didn’t it? It was also a REALLY cold month for us: record lows across the board and the coldest February we’ve had in decades, with some broken outstanding records lasting over a century before being broken this year. Here are a few things I enjoyed during this cold, short time.
TELEVISION
You know I love TV. I was raised on television and it was getting so bad that I gave up TV for Lent last year. Because of that, I basically stopped watching most shows I had been watching every week and haven’t caught up since. (I still need to watch the last season of Legend of Korra!) Because I have this new void in my TV schedule, I decided to fill it with new shows rather than with something productive. The shows I’ve been liking with the new TV season are:
Agent Carter Tuesdays at 9 PM EST on ABC
My FAVORITE new show this year, I cannot recommend it more if you like humor, action, good relationship-building between characters, Marvel, plain folk heroes (vs. superheroes), and good TV in general. The writing is great, the acting is good, and I want them to renew this show desperately. Season 1 was amazing.
Fresh Off the Boat Tuesdays at 8 PM EST on ABC
Basically, every Asian person and any person who knows an Asian person has been watching this show, sometimes out of guilty obligation. Don’t worry, I understand. But you know why it’s good, besides the really funny writing? Two words for you: 90s nostalgia. We are a generation with a heavy case of 90s nostalgia, and this show captures so many of the things we loved about our 90s childhoods really well.
(And also, the show is just legitimately really funny.)
The Flash Tuesdays at 8 PM EST on CW
Do I love Grant Gustin? Yes, yes I do. He’s a cutie. But in an age where too many studios are trying to cash in on “darker, grittier” superheroes (even though not every superhero is meant to be like Batman and in fact are not supposed to be dark or gritty), it’s nice to have a regular guy superhero with a show that just makes me happy. I’m invested in Barry Allen, I want to know what Dr. Harrison Wells’s deal is, and I care about these characters a lot. It’s really fun seeing how they write the villains every week, too.
Gotham Mondays at 8 PM EST on Fox
Sometimes, though, a town like Gotham can only be portrayed for what is is: dark and gritty and broken. I have really been enjoying exploring Gotham and its inhabitants, many of whom are characters that we know from the Batman stories. (Also, I adore the young actor who plays child Bruce Wayne. He’s great.) The writing is really good in the pacing, within the episode and from one to the next.
Smithsonian Visits
Even though I have now lived in the DC metro area for nearly a decade now, I haven’t really visited the Smithsonian institutions properly! My first visit to the zoo didn’t even include seeing animals and I only saw the Natural History Museum for the first time on my anniversary. But then I got to see the Natural History Museum again at my first Instameet! And I visited the National Gallery of Art this weekend for a photo adventure with some of my friends from the short film I worked on a short while back.
A Degas sculpture
I’m going to go back one of these days and really take in the art. I am also going to make a stronger, conscious effort to visit al these Smithsonian galleries and museums because they are FREE to visit and just such an amazing resource. I should be taking advantage of the fact that I have free access to the biggest museum system in the world.
Walking concourse between the west and east buildings at the National Gallery of Art
Watching Musical Theater [at Warner Theatre]
I’ve had the chance to watch not one but TWO musicals at the Warner Theatre. Prior to this month, I had never been to this theater. I saw 50 Shades! The Musical Parody, which was a romp for sure. I also saw Anything Goes!, which is more of a traditional (and I mean traditional in the sense that Cole Porter wrote the songs) musical. I’ll be doing a write-up of that soon, but I really loved it. Being at the Warner Theatre this past month has reignited my love for musical theater and really made me miss doing choreography and singing along with a chorus.
Our view for 50 Shades! the Musical Parody. Check out that gilding!
IGDC
I’ve just discovered the #igdc community on Instagram (InstaGram DC) and discoverd so many great photographers in the DC area, many of whom I was able to meet at my first ever Instameet. It’s been so nice to see these amazing photos on my Instagram feed as I slowly allow Instagram to be a social network that I use to follow more than just my friends. Plus, I’m learning so much about DC and the beauty it has to offer.
Follow @igdc on Instagram to see a daily featured photo and check out the #igdc hashtag as well!
Photobooths
I am such a sucker for photobooths. We have them at a lot of events in the DC area and I have gotten to the point where I have some standards now. Lazy photobooths (which I’ll still do and have fun with) will consist of a hung up cloth of some sort and someone taking photos for you. MAYBE they’ll throw in some props. We have a lot of companies in the area that set up booths, have a lot of props, and the lighting in the booth is actually really nice. I saw maybe the best photobooth I’ve seen yet in DC this week. It was amazing because they had so many awesome props for our DC-themed party! I was overwhelmed by the options, so we had no choice but to duck into the booth multiple times.
Shenanigans in this photobooth were the highlight of that party. Each frame tells a weird story XD
Family Group Chats
My extended family + my mom are all in China, so they use WeChat religiously. (Maybe a little too much.) (Definitely a little too much.) For Chinese New Year (holla at me, fellow sheep!), they started a giant group chat to include me, my mom, my dad, my mom’s 2 sisters, their daughters, my cousin-in-law (?), and my uncle. I had to mute it because they’re so active, but it’s nice to be in touch with my family on the other side of the world.
A struggle for me to keep up with because I still read Chinese slowly
The Oscars
It’s my favorite award show for a reason. I love the Oscars and I wrote a lengthy post telling you so, complete with a link to my live tweets. 2014 was a great year for movies so the Oscars are a great time to look back and kind of say “Wow, great job Hollywood”. Do they really need that affirmation? Nah. But they give it to themselves every year and we help.
Trivia Crack
The football does not treat me well. Everyone else: we coo’.
This is the only game app I currently have on my phone. I don’t really like having games on my phone because I try to keep the unproductive activity to a minimum. (Since I already waste more time on my phone than I’d like.) HOWEVER I do love trivia. I used to like playing QuizUp, which was great for proving how much Disney trivia I knew. But as my friends shifted from QuizUp to Trivia Crack, and I learned very late why my brother was always asking me random trivia questions, I had to indulge my trivia nerd. I used to be on a bar trivia team but we’ve been forced into retirement because of different circumstances. (Moving, our statewide trivia league ditching the bar we went to anyway, etc.
Even though Trivia Crack madness has been winding down, I did like it a lot this past month. It has been forcing me to scrape around my brain for accurate sports knowledge, but no one is challenging me on Trivia Crack and I’m starting to feel like that friend who is always starting new games. My bad!
Sip of Starrshine 